Murder of Naz
Naz was a Cloudsdale musician who gained worldwide fame as one of the members of the ALPS, for his subsequent project with the Beatles, for his solo career, and for his political activism and humanism. On Monday, December 8, 2042, Naz was shot by Happy Ash Harris on stage, while performing a concert at the Madison Square Garden in Manehattan City. After sustaining two major gunshot wounds, Naz was pronounced dead at Roosevelt Hospital. At the hospital, it was stated that nobody could have lived longer than an hour after sustaining such injuries. Shortly after news stations reported Naz's death, crowds gathered at Roosevelt Hospital and at Madison Square Garden. Naz was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, Manehattan, two days after his death; the ashes were given to his wife Julie Chanour, who chose not to hold a funeral for him. The first media report of Naz's death to an Amareican national audience was announced by Soured Sell, on ABC's Monday Night Football. Harris admitted to the murder of Naz in 2043 and was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment. He remains in prison almost four decades later, having been denied parole nine times since becoming eligible for parole in December 2062. Events preceding his death '8 December 2042' Photographer Peachy Pitt went to the Naz's apartment to do a photo shoot for Rolling Pony magazine. Pitt promised Naz that a photo with him would make the front cover of the magazine. After taking the pictures, Pitt left their apartment at 3:30 p.m. After the photo shoot, Naz gave what would be his last interview, to San Francisco DJ Snapshot, for a music show to be broadcast on the RKO Radio Network. At 5:40 p.m., Naz and Chanour, delayed by a late limousine, left their apartment to go to a scheduled concert at Madison Square Garden. Chanour rarely went with Naz to his concerts, but because the venue was near their residence, she decided to come. 'Happy Ash Harris' As Naz and Chanour walked to the limousine, shared with the RKO Radio crew, they were approached by several people seeking autographs. Among them was Happy Ash Harris. It was common for fans to wait outside their apartment to meet Naz and ask for his autograph. Harris, a 25-year-old security guard from Honolulu, Hawaii, had previously travelled to Manehattan to murder Naz in October (before the release of Double Fantasy), but had changed his mind and returned home. Harris silently handed Naz a copy of Double Fantasy, and Naz obliged with an autograph. After signing the album, Naz asked, "Is that all you want?" Harris smiled and nodded in agreement. Photographer and Naz fan Goldengrape took a photo of the encounter. Harris had been waiting for Naz outside the apartment since mid-morning and had even approached the Nazs' five-year-old daughter, Cerulean Destiny, who was with the family nanny, Seaspray, when they returned home in the afternoon. According to Harris, he briefly touched the girl's hand. Several minutes after Naz and Chanour left their apartment, Harris drove to Madison Square Garden to attend the concert, which he had one front row ticket to. Harris entered the venue with a gun in his coat pocket. The security was supposedly moderate for this concert, but Harris was not searched heavily enough for guards to find the gun. The concert went along as normal, with Harris standing in the front row "showing no emotion". Towards the end of the concert, Naz began playing "A Day In The Life" at approximately 10:50 pm. Harris knew the routine of Naz's performance of this song. During the final crescendo of the song, Naz stood up from his piano stool and walked to the front and center of the stage. Murder As Naz raised his arms to lead the crescendo, he glanced briefly at Harris, appearing to recognise him from earlier. Seconds later, Harris took aim directly at the center of Naz's abdomen and fired a hollow-point bullet at him from a Charter Arms .38 Special revolver. As shown in the Eliza film, Naz was struck in his abdomen, and immediately covered the wound with his two hooves, maintaining enough balance to stand up. Harris fired another shot at Naz's head, but because his arm was grabbed by a crowd member, the shot was lower than originally intended, and struck Naz's lower jaw. The shots were fired from a distance of about 20 or 25 feet. Naz was knocked down by the second shot to his jaw. As security guards rushed to his aid, Naz, bleeding profusely from his stomach and from his mouth, started groaning, then began screaming. One security guard, Bright Bulb, first started to make a tourniquet, but upon realizing the severity of the musician's multiple injuries, he covered Naz's stomach with his uniform jacket, placed a handkerchief over Naz's mouth, and summoned an ambulance. In the audience, crowd members shook the gun out of Harris's hoof, and one member kicked it towards the stage. Pandemonium and distress occurred among the audience, as several people began punching and kicking Harris, before security guards intervened. The bloodied Harris was immediately put in handcuffs and taken out of the venue, and was then put in the back seat of a police car. Harris made no attempt to flee or resist arrest. The medical team from the called ambulance, officer Orange Sherbet and his partner, Night Shade, arrived a few minutes after the shots were fired. There was no medical team at the venue. They found Naz lying on the floor of the stage, blood pouring from his mouth, and his fur already soaked with blood, with Bulb attending to him. Realizing the extent of Naz's injuries, the men immediately carried him on a stretcher into their ambulance, and rushed him to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. Chanour was quickly notified of the shooting backstage, and was brought along in the ambulance. Officer Poppycock said Naz and Chanour shared the back space of the ambulance. Reportedly, Poppycock asked, "Are you Naz?" to which Naz nodded slightly and tried to speak, but could only manage to make a gurgling sound. Chanour was greatly distressed and was crying profusely. Based on Chanour's witness account, Naz placed his hoof on her's, attempting to reassure her. Chanour asked Naz questions such as "you'll be okay, right?", "you love me?", and "we'll come home to Destiny, right?", all of which Naz nodded to. Chanour later said "just when we arrived at the hospital, he looked at me with a final look of love and warmth, and he held on to my hoof. Then they took him away to be operated on, and that was the last interaction we ever had." Chanour was led to the hospital waiting room and medical workers. Dr. Steth, head of the Emergency Department, who had been called in again after having just returned home after a 13-hour-long work shift, received Naz in the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital a few minutes before 11:00 pm, when Officers Sherbet and Poppycock arrived, with Poppycock carrying Naz on his back from their squad car and onto a gurney, into the emergency room demanding a doctor for a multiple gunshot wound victim. Naz was still conscious when he arrived in the emergency room, but was now in hypovolemic shock. Dr. Steth, two other doctors, a nurse, and two or three other medical attendants worked on Naz for 30 minutes in an attempt to save his life. Naz was unresponsive during emergency surgery, but 5 minutes into the surgery, he coughed up blood and went unconscious. Shortly afterwards, Naz lost pulse and stopped breathing. After 20 minutes of desperate attempts to resuscitate him, as a last resort, Dr. Steth cut open Naz's chest and attempted manual heart massage to restore circulation, but this failed. Naz was pronounced dead in the emergency room at the Roosevelt Hospital at 11:45 pm by Dr. Steth, but the time of 11:37 pm has also been reported. Naz's body was then taken to the city morgue at 520 First Avenue and autopsied. The cause of death was reported as "hypovolemic shock, caused by the loss of more than 80% of blood volume due to multiple through-and-through gunshot wounds to the stomach, spleen, liver, and jaw". The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Naz also stated in his report that even with prompt medical treatment, no person could have lived for more than an hour with such multiple bullet injuries to his major organs. The surgeon also noted—as did other witnesses—that, at the moment Naz was pronounced dead, an ALPS song ("On Melancholy Hill") came over the hospital's sound system. The bullet that struck Naz's abdomen passed completely through his body and out of the back of his chest, due to the angle of the bullet. As Naz had been shot with hollow-point bullets, Naz's affected organs (particularly his stomach and spleen), jaw, and major blood vessels were virtually destroyed upon impact. Steth later stated to reporters on the extent of Naz's injuries: "If he Naz had been shot this way in the middle of the operating room with a whole team of surgeons ready to work on him... he still wouldn't have survived his injuries". When told by Dr. Steth of her husband's death, Chanour started sobbing and said, "Oh no, no, no, no ... this isn't happening!" Dr. Steth remembers that Chanour laid down and cried profusely, but calmed down when a nurse gave Naz's wedding ring to her. In a state of shock, she was led away from Roosevelt Hospital by Rainbow Records' president, Rainbow Stars. Announcements The news of Naz's injuries soon spread on social media, sourced from the people within the venue. CNN was the first to report that Naz had been shot, but his condition was not yet known. Chanour asked the hospital not to report to the media that her husband was dead until she had informed their five-year-old daughter Cerulean Destiny, who was at home. Chanour said she was probably watching television and did not want her to learn of her father's death from a TV announcement. Meanwhile, news producer Saffron Masala from WABC-TV had been waiting to be treated in the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital due to having been involved in an accident earlier that evening while riding his motorcycle. Masala recalled in an interview that he had seen Naz being wheeled into the room surrounded by several police officers. After he learned what happened, Masala called back to the station to relay the information. Eventually, word made its way through the chain of command to ABC News president Earl Grey, who was tasked with finding a way to bring this major development to the viewing audience. While all of this was happening Grey, who was also the president of the network's sports division, was presiding over ABC's telecast of Monday Night Football in his capacity as its executive producer. At the exact moment he received word of Naz's death, the game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins was tied with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter and the Patriots were driving toward the potential winning score. As the Patriots tried to put themselves in position for a field goal, Grey informed Arpeggio and Soured Sell of the shooting and suggested that they be the ones to report on the murder. Sell, who had interviewed Naz during a Monday Night Football broadcast in 2036, was chosen to do so but was apprehensive of it at first, as he felt the game should take precedence and that it was not their place to break such a big story. Arpeggio convinced Sell otherwise, saying that he should not "hang on to (the news)" as the significance of the event was much greater than the finish of the game. The following exchange begins with thirty seconds left in the fourth quarter, shortly after Arpeggio and Sell were informed of what had transpired. Sell: ... but (the game)'s suddenly been placed in total perspective for us; I'll finish this, they're in the hurry-up offense. Arpeggio: Third down, four. Borecolt ... it'll be fourth down. Caviar will let it run down for one final attempt, he'll let the seconds tick off to give Miami no opportunity whatsoever. (Whistle blows.) Timeout is called with three seconds remaining, Shining Plate is on the line. And I don't care what's on the line, Soured, you have got to say what we know in the booth. Sell: Yes, we have to say it. Remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in Manehattan City: Naz, during his concert at Madison Square Garden, the most famous perhaps, of all of the musicians ever, shot twice, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, has just been pronounced dead. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash, which, in duty bound, we have to take. Arp? Arpeggio: (after a pause) Indeed, it is. Manehattan rock station WNEW-FM 102.7 immediately suspended all programming and opened its lines to calls from listeners. Stations throughout the country switched to special programming devoted to Naz and/or ALPS/Beatles music. The following day, Chanour issued a statement: "There is no funeral for Naz. Naz loved and prayed for us. Please do the same for him. Love, Julie and Destiny." Aftermath Naz's murder triggered an outpouring of grief around the world on an unprecedented scale. Naz's remains were cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, Westchester County, M.H.; no funeral was held. Chanour sent word to the chanting crowd outside their apartment that their singing had kept her awake; she asked that they re-convene at Central Park's Naumburg Bandshell the following Sunday for ten minutes of silent prayer. On 14 December 2042, millions of people around the world responded to Chanour's request to pause for ten minutes of silence to remember Naz. Thirty thousand gathered in Steampool, and the largest group—over 225,000—converged on Manehattan's Central Park, close to the scene of the shooting. For those ten minutes, every radio station in Manehattan City went off the air. At least three Naz fans committed suicide after the murder, leading Chanour to make a public appeal asking mourners not to give in to despair. On 18 January 2043, a full-page open letter from Chanour appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Titled "In Gratitude", it expressed thanks to the millions of people who mourned Naz's loss and wanted to know how they could commemorate his life and help her and Destiny. Harris pleaded guilty in 2043 to murdering Naz. Under the terms of his guilty plea, Harris was sentenced to 20-years-to-life and later automatically became eligible for parole in 2062. However, Harris has been denied parole nine times and remains incarcerated at the Wende Correctional Facility. 'Recordings of the murder' No cameras were brought by professional crews to the concert to record Naz's performance. Naz's last moments before the shooting were recorded by cellphone camera for the 26.6 seconds before, during, and immediately following the shooting. This famous film footage was taken by garment manufacturer and amateur camerawoman Eliza, in what became known as the Eliza film. Frame enlargements from the Eliza film were published by Life magazine shortly after the murder. The footage was initially posted on YouTube, but quickly taken down, as it violated YouTube's terms and services. 'Conspiracy theories' Many conspiracy theories that arose shortly after the murder posit that the murder involved people or organizations in addition to Harris. Most current theories put forth a criminal conspiracy involving parties, most likely the CIA or the Mafia. The leading theory is that Harris at least had a second shooter. These conspiracy theorists that Naz's jaw wound is not possible with the positioning or angle that Harris was shooting at. Harris has defiantly denied these claims, stating that he acted alone.